Not All That Is Over Is Past
by control of chaos
Summary: Alex never intended to run back into Gibbs and his team, but that's exactly what happened. Well actually, they ran into him. Literally. But what is he doing back in DC, and what's he carrying a dead marine for? UPDATE: Plot line undergoing operation. Will resume shortly. Earlier chapters WILL BE REVISED.
1. Prologue

Prologue of _Not All That Is Over Is Past_, and sequel to _Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost_. By overwhelming votes, through poll and PMs and reviews, this one got precedence over both the other AR works I mean to finish at some point. I hope you all love it! As always, R&R.

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><p>"Do you think we'll ever see him again, boss?"<p>

"I doubt it, Dinozzo. It doesn't seem like something he would do."

[six months later]

Abby yawned, rubbing a black gloved hand across her eyes as she struggled to pay attention to the shadowed road ahead despite the mostly-full large plastic cup of Caf-POW! situated on the passenger seat beside her. When the small car on the opposite side of the road had passed, she flicked her high beams back on. A glance at her gas levels informed her that she was going to need to make a stop relatively soon if she wanted to get back to work in the morning. Gibbs would not be happy if she was not on call at his every whim and murder.

Noticing a glimmer of light through the trees around the bend, she put her low beams back on, not noticing that there was only one beam instead of the two she should have been looking for. It was only when she was mere feet away that she grasped this fact and slammed on the breaks, bringing her bright red 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe* to a screeching halt. A flash of blond hair and thud followed, despite her quick reflexes.

"Oh God, I hit somebody!" she cried as she threw her door open and jumped out, tightly laced, knee-high black combat boots quietly tapping the ground. Racing around to the front, the first thing she saw illuminated by the truck's glaring beams was the large amount of blood. It was when the adrenaline calmed down two hours later and she regained her composure that she realized how little of it was on the front of her Ford.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God." The tall, rather heavy set blond male was sprawled on his back, no injuries visible except a nasty looking ankle, badly fractured, if not broken, and the dark stain of what could not have been confused for anything except blood spreading across his stomach in distinct splatters. They had been created by bullets, but all Abby noticed was the blood and his white, almost grey, skin tone. She put two fingers on his throat, biting down hysterics, and her free hand an inch above his mouth, trying to test for signs of life. There were none.

Standing unsteadily on shaking legs, and finally resigning to leaning against her car for support, she grabbed for the cell phone in her pocket as if it was a life saver in shark infested waters and hit the first speed dial programmed in. He was still in the office. Of course he was, because when the case was finished, he always stayed late to finish the paperwork even after impatiently shooing the rest of his groggy team off to the elevator.

Just as she thought, an exasperated and gruff voice answered, "Gibbs."

"Gibbs! I need help, and maybe an ambulance or something because when I was going home this guy just appeared in front of me and I hit the brakes really fast because I saw the light he was carrying, except I don't know where his flashlight went, which seems kinda weird, and now there's blood everywhere and I think he's dead, but he's really dead and I don't know what to do, Gibbs! What am I supposed to do, because it wasn't my fault, but it sort of was my fault, but—"

"Abbs, slow down and repeat. You hit someone and you think he's dead?" His tone didn't change, despite the immediate situation. Instead, it actually calmed to assess damages.

"No, I _know_ he's dead. He isn't even breathing, but I couldn't have hit him that hard, because I always drive really slowly at night with these small roads and there are always animals jumping in the way, but I really did stop when—"

"Abbs. Slow. Down. I'll trace your number and drive out there. Just calm down and keep talking." There was the sound of papers and pencils being moved around in the background alongside the steady click of the mouse. "You mentioned a light?"

"Yeah, because I thought it was another car. That's why I turned my high beams off, but I don't see anything around here that wou…" The goth stopped as something curious caught her attention.

"Abbs? Something wrong?"

"No, I just…his lips were cold, so he's been dead for awhile. I didn't notice that before."

"All right, I have your location." The sound of the elevator's ding, and then the quiet opening of the twin metal doors echoed behind his voice. "Give me a couple minutes. If he's been dead, then someone else is there with you. Do you see anyone?"

Abby pulled her leather jacket securely around her thin frame, shivering despite the warmth of the spring night, searching the vicinity for the second person. "No, there's no one else here." As a quiet groan emanated from a spot just beyond the reach of her Ford's low beams, she quickly revised her statement. "Wait, I just heard something. What do I do, Gibbs? They could be hurt."

"_No_," he stressed. "Grab something to defend yourself. They were carrying a body with them, and I doubt it was necessarily out of goodwill. Don't go _anywhere near them_, Abbs."

"I don't really have anyth—"

"Then grab a branch or lock your doors. Just don't go—"

At that moment, a hand came into view on the pavement, blood staining the fingertips and what little of the palm she could see, a flashlight grasped securely in clenched fingers. Its partner followed after, red splatters less evident on this one but there nonetheless, along with another pained grunt as their owner dragged himself from the dirt lining the roadside. "Oh, that one's going to leave a mark," a surprisingly young voice remarked half-heartedly.

But it was when he crawled into view, flopping tiredly on to the cool pavement, and Gibbs worriedly demanded, "Abby? What's going on?" that she recognized him. Dark grey eyes met startled green ones.

"Alex?"

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><p>AN: Wow, that went up faster than expected. Yet I still haven't found the heart to do my homework. *sweatdrop* Heh. But it _is_ the weekend after all and you were all so nice to send me all sorts of messages. So…how did you like it? Sorry for the cliffy and short intro, but I wanted to post something before bed and I did the same thing to start _Those Who Wander_ so…yeah. Excuses. Comments? Reviews?

*It's true, because Wikipedia says so.


	2. Chapter 1

Part one of _Not All That Is Over Is Past_. Damn, I'm fast. Or just really _really_ want to procrastinate on my probability and statistics research-based project. Either way, this is the result. Enjoy. And review!

(PS: This makes more sense if you've read my whole Safehouse arc. I'm putting this one a couple weeks after Façade.)

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><p>"Alex?"<p>

The teenager rubbed at the side of his temple, frowning as a couple flecks of blood were transferred to his hand, before squinting at the forensic scientist. "Abby? Now I _know_ I have a concussion."

She froze in shock momentarily, before running over to bend down in front of him. "Alex! I would hug you, but you look all…not so good, but I've got a first-aid kit stashed away somewhere and—"

Both of them felt their hearts leap into their throats as Gibbs impatiently spoke up, "Abbs, you still there?"

"Yeah, I'm here and we're going to need an ambulance becau—" Abby raised an eyebrow as Alex shook his head, "—se I found the second person and he's going to need medical attention ASAP."

"No, I have to _leave_ before he gets here!" he said urgently, but kept it under his breath so it wouldn't be picked up by the other line. "I'm not even supposed to be here in the first place!"

"Doesn't matter," she whispered back. "Do you really think Gibbs would tell anyone else where you are if you didn't want him to?"

"But then I could get him in trouble for sheltering a fugitive…" His last three words were little more than breaths of air.

She pouted, brushing some of the dirt from his hair and shirt and noting how he flinched away from physical contact. Any lingering effects of the amnesia he had suffered half a year ago were long gone, leaving his learned instincts fully intact. "Does. Not. Matter. You're like our little brother."

"Abbs? Problems?"

"No, sorry Gibbs. Make that a no-go on the ambulance, but I hope you have some band-aids because we have a friend here that would like to remain anonymous. He's going to need some serious work and, oh God, were you the one that I hit? I knew I hit something and—"

"It was just a glancing blow, Abby," he reassured her. "The rest of this was earlier tonight. Nothing to worry about." Alex chose that moment to try and stand up, only to find that the nice tap the Ford had given him was somewhat more painful than he had originally assumed. She grabbed him around the chest as he sank back down, catching him before his knees hit the pavement. "Ah, looser on the grip." Noticing the man on the ground captured in the headlights of Abby's Ford, he started. He intended to ask something, but all he could think of was how much today had worn him out and how comfortable the forensic examiner's shoulder was despite the silver spiked collar poking the side of his head.

Abby unwittingly rambled on. "I know Ducky's the medical person, but you should probably lay down. I mean, there's blood on your head and you could have a concussion, so you shouldn't be moving your head too fast and…Alex?" When she didn't get an answer, she lightly shook his shoulders and spoke a little louder. "Alex?" All she got in response was his quiet, steady breathing. "Asleep? Really?" She retrieved the flashlight from his limp hands and waved it side to side, looking for a possible third person.

"Abby," she would have jumped a foot if she hadn't been holding up the teenager, "I'm less than a minute away."

"Oh, uh Gibbs!" The sudden realization came to her that her phone had dropped to the ground beside her when she'd caught Alex. Fumbling with the flashlight, she exchanged the two. "Yeah, you might want to stop a little further back. We're taking up most of the road here."

"Got it."

Sure enough, only a few seconds after he hung up, the twin set of headlights came to a stop before a tall figure with silver hair and a loose NCIS sweatshirt rounded the corner to assess the situation. Despite coming straight from the office, it looked like he had just jumped out of bed. As per request, a white box with the stereotypical red cross emblazoned on the front was dangling from one hand. "What have you got for me, Abby?" Gibbs asked, taking note of both the lifeless body in front of the red Ford and the non-moving one she was holding.

"Well, uh, he really didn't want me telling you anything, something about getting into trouble and all that, but it's sort of—"

"It's Alex, isn't it." It was a question, but his tone implied that he already knew the answer.

"…Yeah. But tell him that I didn't tell you anything. He wanted to go, but I didn't let him and I think he might have just fallen asleep."

Seeing the smudge of red on the side of the teenager's forehead, the special agent set the first-aid kit on the ground. "He didn't want an ambulance?"

"No. I think he might be in trouble or something, but didn't he say last time that he normally worked _with_ the suits?"

"Things change, Abbs, and so do people. I'll call Ducky and he can walk you through the steps." Taking out his phone, he restated his words. "On the other hand, maybe you can figure out how to make my phone work. Damn thing certainly won't work for me. You have better luck" She caught it as he tossed the cell to her and searched through his contact list.

While she waited for the chief medical examiner of NCIS to pick up his call, Gibbs knelt down by the body. What caught his attention was not the blood, but the holes going through his shirt and into the man's abdomen. Holes that would not have been caused by impact with a car, and ones that looked exactly like those caused by getting shot at multiple times.

"Ducky? This is Abby. I need some medical advice. … No, I'm fine. … A friend. He tripped on something and might have been hit by a car. … No, he isn't conscious. … Breathing's good. … Heart rate? Maybe a little fast, but he was just hit by…oh, I get it. … No, should I? … Okay, so lay him flat on the ground, and do I need to get something under his neck? … No, he moved his head just fine. … Oh, no, he's unconscious. Before he was awake, but then he just passed out."

Ruffling through the man's jacket, Gibbs finally found a leather wallet among a couple cents in spare change. Inside were the usual assortment of credit cards, subway stubs, and crumpled receipts. As he took note of the name on the ID, there was another interesting fact on the dead man's driver's license. "Abby."

The gothic forensic examiner turned her attention to her boss. "Hmm?"

"Tell Duck to call in the rest of the team when he gets the chance. We have ourselves a crime scene, because Alex brought us a naval lieutenant."

Her eyes widened, but Abby transferred the request through to the medical examiner, who in turn had her pass the memo back that he would give everyone their location.

The only question remaining was whether or not they would have to put Alex Rider's mysterious reappearance into their report.

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><p>As always, Ducky was the first to arrive and Tony the last by a snail's mile.<p>

Ducky split his time between determining time and cause of death for the corpse McGee had confirmed to be Lieutenant Commander Caleb Johnson and ensuring that Alex had not fractured his hip, a fact he was almost certain of. Once he had checked the teenager's neck for injury, he let Gibbs put him in his backseat with the special agent's sweatshirt covering his shoulders. His final prognosis was run-of-the-mill exhaustion, despite the shallow graze to his temple, and the shadows beneath his eyes could easily testify to that.

"I will need to take our lieutenant down to examination to get a closer estimate, Jethro, but Johnson here died only an hour ago. He's pale from losing so much blood and is still radiating a minute amount of heat."

"He wasn't dead when Abby ran into them?"

"By my best guess, he had probably passed away only minutes prior to their unfortunate meeting. As evidenced by the blood on our young friend's shirt, Alex was likely attempting to carry the lieutenant commander to get medical attention when he was hit. By the time the car would have hit him, he had already died from a chance puncture of his left lung. One of the bullets ricocheted upwards, causing fatal damage. Of course, I will have to take him back to double-check my conjecture."

Gibbs crossed his arms, but nodded. With a jerk of his head in Ziva's direction, she immediately recognized the prompt to start speaking.

"I found no other evidence of a third person. Their footprints go back only so far, and then they disappear completely at a smaller road. Presumably, they were in a vehicle at some point that is no longer here and a third person was driving. So either the lieutenant commander's shooter dropped him and Alex off on the side of the road, or someone else was with them." The former Mossad agent hesitated for a moment to phrase her words correctly. "Gibbs, from prior experience, we know that where Alex was…"

"Ben Daniels wasn't far off," he finished. "Yes, I know."

Tony ducked under the yellow 'CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS' tape that stretched across the road to block it off, just in case the blockades further down didn't dissuade hikers from stumbling across them, and looked around at the small group. "Sorry for getting here late, boss. I was down at the Navy Yard and McGee sent me over here."

"Ducky didn't give you the location?"

"Uh, he probably did. I was a little…distracted…at the time." Ziva rolled her eyes and Gibbs just shook his head as he gestured at the crime scene.

"If you don't mind?"

"Not at all, boss. What are we down here for again?"

Ziva condensed and paraphrased the situation for him, with the little they knew, and ended with, "Alex is back."

"And he was nice enough to bring us a dead guy? We should bring him home for Christmas sometime. Seriously though, what's he doing here? Doesn't he have nuclear wars to stop and terrorists to kill?"

"I'm sure that espionage isn't just what they make of it in James Pond movies, Tony."

"It's Bond, Ziva. James Bond. But how would you know? I mean, how would any of us know? The spies certainly won't tell us, because then we'd all want their jobs. Just imagine how many dates you could get, being able to say that you work in the spy game."

"I doubt that is their priority."

"But how would we know? I'm just saying."

"Dinozzo." The Gibbs-slap came like a laser-sighted missile, honing in on the back of his head and hitting just right, so as to knock loose enough brain cells to wake him up. "Get to work."

"On it, boss."

Abby had just finished snapping photos and collecting materials from the scene to test in her lab when she saw a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye. "Giiiiiibbs?"

He turned towards her. "What?"

"I think there's something moving around out there."

"It _is_ the woods, Abby," Tony noted. "Things are allowed to move around out there. Bunnies and birds and bears and whatnot."

The scientist put her hands on her hips, letting the camera hang loosely around her neck. "Yeah well that didn't exactly look like a bunny, Tony. I'm pretty sure I can tell the difference." The faint sound of a thin stick being snapped by a careless foot had them spinning their heads to the side. "See? Bunnies do _not_ sound like that."

Tony and Ziva bravely ventured out towards the woods until Ziva noticed a shadow by Gibbs' car that shouldn't have been there. "Hey! Over there!"

The sudden shout spooked them, but not before they hurriedly gathered up the limp form of Alex did they attempt to dash off back down into the brambles. Intent on escaping, the black-clothed person failed to notice Gibbs until he spoke up from right in front of him. "Put the kid down and get those hands in the air." Before he could change course, Ziva had positioned herself behind him, her gun brushing the hairs on the back of his neck and Tony was at his left.

With a groan, the figure complied. "Damn. I'm going to catch so much hell for this."

Gibbs frowned. The voice was oddly familiar. "Take off the ski mask and hand over some identification."

Carefully lowering his hands, he slipped the cheap black cloth off and tossed it on the ground before handing over his driver's license. "I'm James Mendoza, but I think you guys might know me better as Wolf."

"As in K-Unit?" Tony asked, reluctant to lower his firearm. "As in the people who were with Alex the last time he was here?"

"That would be the one. Am I allowed to go, because I still have a large amount of work to finish?"

"Is kidnapping normally on the agenda," asked Gibbs, tossing the ID back to him after inspecting it, "or is this a new one?"

"I don't think it's considered kidnapping when the person being abducted is the same person who ordered it." He shrugged, hands still in the air. "I'll have to grab a dictionary to check that one, though."

"This is our crime scene, and as Alex was found in the presence of our victim, he has to come back to NCIS for processing."

Wolf gritted his teeth in frustration. "I can't let you do that."

"You aren't exactly in a position to make decisions."

"I'm under direct orders from the head of MI6 himself. Alex _cannot_ be caught in public, much less in a government building on foreign soil."

Tony's eyes wavered between Wolf and Gibbs, neither of whom seemed willing to come to a mutual agreement. "Do we still have to hold our guns up? My wrist is going numb."

No one had the chance to respond, as a set of fast-paced thumps approached from the trees, accompanied by an out of breath voice saying, "Wolf! Fox wants updates, Snake wants condition reports and Falcon just ate my candy bar!"

His stare-down with Gibbs never faltering, he calmly asked, "Can I go kill my teammate, or is that also something I'm not allowed to do?"

"Do what you need to," the marine conceded, holstering his gun and indicating for the rest of his team to follow suit, "but Alex is staying right here."

Eyes narrowed, the soldier let his hands fall down to his sides as he yelled back at his soon-to-be-dead teammate, "Grab the bundle and get me a video connection with Fox! We have some issues that he needs to sort out for us!"

"Righto!" A full minute of loud and completely unnecessary noise later and Eagle fell only somewhat gracefully from a tree hanging over the road. "Fox had to run through a meeting, but he said he could get out of it fairly quickly if… Hey, I remember you guys from the last time we were here." Abby waved at him from her truck and he reciprocated it. "So what's the issue, Wolf?"

"They're trying to pull Alex down to the Navy Yard."

"But didn't—" Wolf's glare made him re-think his words. "I mean, uh, why?"

"Good question." He put the spotlight back on the NCIS team, most of who were still trying to piece together what was happening.

"That over there," Gibbs pointed to the body now covered in a white sheet, "was Lieutenant Commander Caleb Johnson. I'm detaining Alex because he's probably the only witness we have and because he has a certain history of shooting people he doesn't see eye-to-eye with."

Eagle murmured, "That's true."

"Eagle, you aren't helping. Now get Fox to quote law, or whatever it is he does."

From the dull olive and black backpack secured on his back, the soldier pulled out a thin silver laptop. Clicking a few buttons and turning up the volume, he managed to make the video camera on his end work. "Hey, Fox, you there?"

A bodiless, exasperated voice replied, "Give me a second."

"It's important," growled Wolf.

"Oh, well then why didn't you say so sooner?" he returned, heavily ladling on the sarcasm. "I can just drop everything and get right to you. _Give me a second_." There was a shuffling, followed by the loud thunk of a body falling to the floor, and the sound of multiple voices talking all at the same time before a harried and somewhat frazzled-looking Ben Daniels managed to pull himself over to the screen. "Remind me to never again accept promotions. They suck. What can I do for you?"

Gibbs knelt down to snatch the screen from the two of them. "Daniels."

"Gibbs. I haven't seen you in months, which is probably a good thing considering what my last three months have looked like. "

"We found Alex—"

"Dammit, now I have to employ the Beta-Protocol. Umm, I'll have to fax over some documents to your office for you and anyone else there to sign, minus K-Unit, of course, to say that you never saw him, spoke to him, and all the rest of that stuff." His image blurred off the screen as he moved to grab something from his desk.

"I don't have it," Ziva stated simply, as Tony muttered "_don't get it, not have it_". "The last time there was not all this fuss. Why so now?" All eyes went to Wolf.

"Don't look at me. I've signed so many forms that I don't know what I'm allowed to say anymore."

"Then who _does_ know what we're allowed to know?"

Ben popped back on screen to say, "Alex" at the same time that Wolf gestured at the teenager.

Gibbs sighed. It was going to be a really long night.

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><p>AN: Not as long as I would've liked, but it's three in the morning, on a school night, and I have other stories to work on. So...hopefully the next one will be longer. It most likely will. Once again, if you've read Façade, this makes a lot of sense. *hint hint*


	3. Chapter 2

Part two of _Not All That Is Over Is Past_. Sorry for the pause between updates, but I had some more health issues to fix. Yay steroids. Also, look out in the next month or so for a collaboration project by _NightmareWorld_, _rainstripe_, _Writer With Sprite_ and myself. They're an awesome group to work with, and the result is going to be _awesome_. I'll post a link on my profile once we start putting the chapters up. I may also begin posting for _Requiem for a Rising Star_, just for the hell of it.

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><p>Through an hour of ceaseless back-and-forth debating between Gibbs and Ben, unhelpful grunts from Wolf, and a lot of tedious worrying by way of Abby, they all finally came to the general consensus that they weren't going to reach an agreement any time soon. Their ceasefire arrangement was basically to sit where they were and do nothing.<p>

This was how it was when Alex came around in the backseat of Gibbs' car. He absently rubbed at the foreign fabric on his head—the gauze that Abby had tied around his forehead—but made no move to remove it. Instead, he shook out some of the newly blue-streaked hair trapped beneath it to cover it as well as it could be hidden. Throwing the NCIS sweatshirt on over the plain camouflage tee that was all he had on despite the cool spring air. What had happened to his Kevlar-lined jacket was beyond him; it had fallen off, or been used for something else at some point, he supposed, and in the adrenaline rush, it had been deemed unimportant.

Getting out of the car, he felt a twinge of pain in his hip, not unlike when he had sprained his ankle four months ago. Beneath his shirt, a large mottled bruised had started to form along his left side. It spread from a spot just below his ribs and flared out before dulling to a normal color halfway to his knee. An impressive sight and one that was going to hurt a lot before it got better.

He hadn't looked out the car windows before hopping out, so it almost took him by surprise—not much did anymore—when he saw the two groups practically coming to verbal blows. It wasn't until he was a couple meters away that he heard Ben's voice emanating from the laptop.

"Beta-Protocol, Gibbs. I can't _do_ _anything_."

"I've never heard of this _Beta-Protocol_, Daniels, and that makes it sound shifty to my ears."

Ziva whispered to Tony, "What does moving have anything to do with this problem?"

"Y'know, shifty, fishy, underhanded—"

She threw her hands up. "I fail to see how hands and fish relate to this either!" the former-Mossad agent quietly exclaimed. "English is a nonsensical language. I think I am beginning to understand, and then these strange phrases start popping up and I get lost all over again."

As he entered the view of the laptop's camera, Ben leaned over in his chair to wave. "Hey Alex! Is it okay to be demoted back to my regular job as senior field agent? I'm not being paid enough to deal with this."

Everyone turned around to see him shrug. "You'd have to take that up with Rochester, but I'm pretty sure the answer would be 'no'."

"Dammit. I knew he was sneaky and underhanded, but leaving me with all this work? That's just harsh. Nice headband by the way."

"It's not a…oh forget it. Have you shot the OSA and BP forms over to the nearest secure base?"

"If I could figure where it was in the first place, yeah, I would get it over. Unfortunately, I couldn't get into Rochester's location database to flush out the—"

"Just send it to NCIS. I'm sure Director Vance wouldn't mind a few more forms to sign. Besides, they'll have to know enough to erase any fingerprints I've left."

"You left _fingerprints_?" Ben leaned backward, pinching his nose between two fingers. "Give me a break. They'll come positive as—"

"Gibbs!" Abby bounced over, giving Alex a gentle hug before waving her phone in the air. "McGee got a match on one of the prints! They came up as—"

"Lieutenant Commander Caleb Johnson," they finished simultaneously. A startled Abby looked at Gibbs for an explanation while Ben groaned in frustration.

"Dammit, Al. You know how long it took to set this up? Wait, don't answer that. Of course you would. Now you have _more_ explaining to do, for everyone here. I don't even _know_ how this one was killed."

"The gunshots," Ducky interjected. "Your lieutenant was shot multiple times in the abdomen which led to his demise by hemorrhaging."

Eagle whistled. "You do know how to kill them off."

"Hey, I did _not_ kill Johnson!"

Gibbs raised his voice. "Care to explain what did happen then?" The rash of talking that had broken out among the two groups came to an abrupt halt.

Alex shared a look with Ben before saying, "Okay, but no one can let any of this slip to anyone else. _Especially _not Director Vance," he tagged to the end. "You guys get caught, you'll just be demoted. Maybe fired, depending on the circumstances. Vance catches fire and with his rank, he'll be assassinated along with everyone else involved. Rochester doesn't like taking chances." At the confused expressions, Ben not included, he shrugged. "You have questions. Fire away."

"Who is this Rochester?" Gibbs started. "What happened to Blunt?"

"Blunt decided the life wasn't for him anymore. Skipped me over for promotion—I _am_ only seventeen—and gave the position to a former agent: Gene Rochester, or whatever his real name is. Good boss, not such a great people-person."

There was a snort from the computer Wolf was holding as Ben rolled his eyes. "Yeah. People-person. Him and Darth Vader. I can't even imagine him like that."

Gibbs sighed. This wasn't making any sense. "Back to the fingerprints, why do you show up with the same identity as our dead lieutenant? You obviously have different prints."

"The name Caleb Johnson is the alias I've been using during my stay. The real Johnson let me borrow his identity for a couple weeks and I had someone re-route my prints to register as his. Even his information in the database has been temporarily changed. No family, so there's no one to corroborate the real story, and the majority of his friends are working overseas for the most part."

"So how did he wind up with you, and all…" Tony motioned obscurely with one hand, "…uh, shot up and corpsified?"

The teenager rubbed absently at the bandage around his head. "Well, to be honest with you, I'm almost as confused as you are. I was at the base a couple miles that way," he pointed the direction that he had come, "by the Naval Yard, finishing up some work with a CIA agent, and he came in to tell me that something had gone wrong. The CIA agent must have been confused about there being two Caleb Johnsons and he opened fire on us. You can see the results."

"Johnson should have been living it up on that beach in Monterrey where we set him up," Ben frowned. "Why would he return early?"

"If he wasn't all 'corpsified', as Dinozzo so eloquently put it," Tony protested, but no one paid any attention to him, "I would know. He died before I could get any answers."

Ziva crossed her arms. "You really want us to believe that you carried the lieutenant, who's somewhere around two-fifty, two-sixty, all the way from the Yard, injured and by yourself?"

"Would you like to have a demonstration," he asked in a chilly tone, "or get this whole case sorted out?"

"Can we make contact with Rochester to determine what he wants us to do?" Ben interrupted. To Gibbs' surprise, he didn't look particularly comfortable in this situation despite the familiarity he should have had with it. Alex, on the other hand, was easily taking this in stride. His cover had been blown, a teammate gunned down, and the teenager, of all people, was confident as ever. Something suspicious was up here, and none of the spies were being entirely forthcoming.

"I think the less he knows about this, the better. We'll keep it between us."

Wolf rolled his eyes, and the marine found another interesting tidbit. The last time they had met, K-Unit and Alex had still maintained a good amount of tension between them, as if they were familiar but not necessarily close. The scales had tipped in the teen's favor since then, and K-Unit's commander was either in his debt or had found some reason to respect him; so much so, in fact, that he was risking his career and life for him. Interesting.

"What is the Beta-Protocol?"

The spy's ears perked up at those two simple words. "The BP? It's a new contract Rochester put into effect that some agents are obliged to follow. There are limitations employed that keep us from revealing our identities for national security reasons. Normally, spies from MI6 are allowed contact with those from the CIA and even FBI, in rare inter-relation cases; England and the States are in good standing with each other. In the event that someone is put under the BP, that's prevented. We are specifically forbidden from speaking or becoming involved in any matter that could bring us in contact with US authoritative services."

Gibbs felt the lines creasing his forehead. For a teenager, he sure didn't sound like one. Even in six months, very few people change so drastically. What had happened within that time? "Why would your boss, Rochester, have created such a contract?"

"You'll have to ask him," he responded much too innocently. "Rochester's made a lot of changes, and this was just the most recent one."

"Wait, wait, wait." Ziva was the first one to notice something obviously wrong or overlooked in his story. "How did you get Johnson to just loan you his name and job for a couple weeks? That doesn't seem like something someone would just do on a whim. Where did you find him, anyway?"

"That's an easy one. The CIA has liaisons in MI6, and vice versa. Well, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"He wasn't really a liaison because that would mean that the CIA knew that his first priority was to MI6."

"A spy?"

"Not by the conventional means. Byrne was withholding information, and w—Rochester needed to know what it was. Johnson was never really MI6, but he sent the occasional piece our way when prodded. When I needed to get some work done in the States and had to keep from being picked up by people I had had prior contact with, he offered to let me walk in his shoes for however long I needed to. The CIA knew he was going on vacation either way. It's not like they had constant surveillance on him." No one had the guts to ask about or challenge his slip of tongue.

"Why would he do something like that?" Tony asked, propping his back up against the car he had driven out in. Squad cars were typically taken out to crime scenes, but both Ziva and he had been called straight from home.

Alex shrugged. "Rochester takes control of that side of things. My job is limited to running ops, not setting them up."

"Where _is_ this Rochester?" Ducky spoke up. "It seems quite inconvenient that he would vanish at a time like this. Being the head of MI6, it seems strange that he would disappear at all."

"That's just something about Rochester," the teenager said in a wry tone. "He comes and goes. I guess he likes being out in the field than cramped up in an office."

The look that crossed Wolf's face was the one that immediately put Gibbs on edge: amusement. Everything they were hearing was either skirting the truth or completely made up on the spot; the latter was looking more and more likely as this Q&A session continued. A glance at the drops of blood seeping from beneath the partially-hidden bandage, and he pushed his confirmed suspicions to the back of his immediate worries. "You're bleeding."

Lifting a hand to wipe off the crimson spots only served to further smear it. "No big deal. I'll get it stitched up later. Ben, have the forms been faxed to Vance?"

"Yep. They should be printing out later. There's a mass signature form, so we don't need multiple sheets."

"Awesome. The sooner this gets fixed up, the better." He turned his attention back to Gibbs. "There's a flight I'm booked on tonight to return to London. I have quite the busy schedule set for this week, and the sooner I get back, the more sleep I can catch up on." That part was true. The dark shadows beneath his eyes could be seen from a mile away in the dark.

Wolf stepped up at this point. "I'm going to have to protest that. Snake heard about your car accident and he insists that you stop by the safe house to be checked before doing proceeding further. And that blood isn't going to help your case."

Swearing colorfully under his breath, the teenager glared menacingly at the commander of K-Unit. "And how did _that_ little bit of information happen to slip out?"

He held up his hands in surrender. "I thought that it was best to keep everyone, including Snake, updated on the situation. Besides, you could have been killed for all we knew."

"Suuure, because that's what I'd want on my tombstone. 'He survived all the shit life threw at him, but died forgetting to look both ways.'"

The soldier muttered something that no one could hear, much less understand, but Alex seemed understand what he was trying to get across and sent another glare his way that said clearly 'shut up'.

"Fine, I'll stop over at the safe house, but unless Snake knocks me out and handcuffs me to the bed—"

"Again."

"—then I'm going to be on that plane tonight."

From the screen, Ben just shook his head. "Ever since you and the terrible duo pulled that stunt** and nearly put the rest of us into a catatonic state, Snake hasn't been cutting you a bit of slack. I'll see you back in the office next week and get Derek* to cover for you until then. He could use the practice." Biting back a grunt, the teen nodded his agreement. "Just make sure that Vance gets those documents faxed back to me for filing purposes. Good luck to you too, Gibbs." With a brief wave of his hand, the feed was cut and the laptop went dark.

"I guess I should get moving then…" The rest of his words trailed off as he caught Gibbs' eye. "You have more questions, don't you?" he sighed drearily.

"What was the incident he mentioned?"

"Not one I am at liberty to repeat. Seriously," he added when his words were met with several disbelieving looks, "I had to go through so much paperwork to cover it up because of some of the people it involved and just bringing up the subject is probably grounds for immediate dismissal."

Tony shook his head with a snort, and Ziva looked just as unconvinced. Gibbs just frowned, and that was what worried the teenage spy.

"You aren't going to let me leave, are you, Gibbs?"

"Protocol says that we can't let you step away from this one."

"Why does this always happen to me?" Alex muttered to himself. "Fine. I have to go to the safe house anyway. You can have someone go with me while this gets cleaned up between you and the CIA, so long as my name stays completely out of this. None of my prints will register as my own, and so long as none of you take polygraphs, they won't know you're lying. Except Abby. Her face is very sensitive, not that it's a bad thing," he reassured her.

"Where _is _this safe house?" Tony prodded, curious about how there were spies hiding in DC right beneath their noses.

"If I told you, it wouldn't be all that safe, now would it?" However, for the purpose of appeasing the NCIS team, he amended, "It's relatively close. I like to keep the safe houses in places where there aren't too many people, but still enough to not have a massacre on the streets without a single spectator. Safer that way."

Crossing his arms, and the frown never leaving his face, Gibbs nodded in the direction of Ziva. "She'll go with you to make sure you stay in town."

The agent looked disturbingly pleased at the turn of events. Alex had mentioned twice that he had met with, or at least seen, her father, the head of the Mossad, and she wanted answers as to how that had occurred. "I can do that."

The next ten seconds went by in slow motion.

Alex was nodding his agreement and about to add something of his own before he froze in place, hearing something out of the ordinary. Seconds later, he spun midway around, trying to pinpoint a location on the odd feeling that had his neck tingling. Before he could catch even a glimpse, he was falling to the ground and not of his own accord. Eagle, who had snuck around the fringes of the assembled group to get behind him, latched on to his upper arm before he could hit the ground.

Abby let out a short cry before dashing to the teenager's side and both Gibbs and Ziva immediately located where the shot had originated. A loud crunch later, and so did everyone else. A young man with a long professional sniper's rifle attached to his back and a gun slung in a holster across his waist crouched at the bottom, having jumped lightly down from his position higher up in the tree. The small plastic support frame around one ankle was the only sign that six months ago he had been on crutches. "Did I hit it right?"

"Perfect shot as always, Falcon," Wolf congratulated, taking the limp teenager from Eagle's grasp and hoisting him over one shoulder in a fireman's carry, careful of the side he knew had been injured. Snake would have berated him for hours if he damaged the kid any further. "Sorry about this," he apologized to the shell-shocked NCIS team, "but he's a flight risk no matter what he leads you to think. We'll make sure he stays put. It might take multiple sets of handcuffs and a twenty-four hour guard posting, but he'll stay put."

Gibbs, who was horrified at the idea of shooting Alex with a tranquilizer dart, nonetheless had to agree that unusual situations require unusual methods. "Keep Ziva with you. She should be helpful. We'll keep in touch."

"We do hope you get everything sorted out," Eagle noted dolefully. "Alex managed to leave a trail of destruction behind him this time, and with the BP in place, it's hard to maneuver in foreign territory anymore, much less help in cleaning things back up."

Ziva followed behind the trio, plus the unconscious teenage spy, as they vanished back into the wooded off-road territory from whence they had come.

Tony shook his head. "Why is it that every time this weird stuff happens, I wind up getting stuck with hours of overtime?" The Gibbs slap followed shortly thereafter.

* * *

><p>AN: Oooookay, I really did mean to update this on Friday, but tons of things got thrown in the way. As always, reviews are a writer's best friend. And by that I mean the reader's source of blackmail. The more blackmail, the more I feel compelled to post faster. Unless I just pass out again, in which case it might not matter how much blackmail you can gather. Go my pretties! Review! Review!

*If you've read Façade and remember that Smithers' first name is Derek, it all makes sense. ^_^

**Again, read Façade. If you know what I'm talking about, don't say what it is in a review. Some people will be surprised, and that's not necessarily a bad thing.


	4. Chapter 3

Part three of _Not All That Is Over Is Past_. This is in commemoration of my…_interesting_ birthday last week, and my hopefully negative lab work.

Again, I didn't check this. If anything looks wrong, tell me, and I will get down to corrections.

* * *

><p>Gibbs and his team—minus Ziva, who was off with K-Unit, and Ducky, returning to his morgue to confirm Lieutenant Johnson's cause of death—had corroborated the teenage spy's story.<p>

The path that Ziva had tracked to the edge of the road did not end there. Further down, they continued on the other side and progressed back through the thin woods. McGee got the honor of collecting blood samples that had coalesced alongside the single set of heavy-seated footprints. From the sheer amount of the liquid, it should have been obvious whose it was, but he collected small amounts of it just to prove that he had done the assignment appointed to him.

Tony, on the other hand, blindly followed after Gibbs. "Hey, boss. So what if these tracks don't end and we're just going around in circles."

"Then we'll know that Alex and our lieutenant were walking around in circles."

"Okay, sure, but doesn't something about this seem strange? Sort of like _Inception_ where everything looks like one thing, but it actually isn't and there's—"

"Dinozzo. Concentrate."

"Sorry, boss. Right. Concentrating." There was nothing but the crack of branches and the crunch of the underbrush for a moment before the silence was broken once again. "But I know something else is at work here. He's like Andy Dufresne in _Shaw_—*"

"Dinozzo?"

"What boss? Oh, that. Wait, this is…" They had emerged from the last of the trees to find themselves in the backyard of a disturbingly familiar building. Only a chain link fence, electrified and fourteen feet high, kept them from getting any closer. "Isn't this the—"

"CIA building? Yes."

"But does that mean that he was actually telling the truth? The whole 'identity stealing' thing?"

"Looks like it." Gibbs bent down to peer at the neatly sliced hole in the links, just large enough for a large dog…or teenager. "I wonder how he knew when the electricity would be switched off."

"They turn off the electricity?"

"We're not the only division that's been suffering large cuts. The FBI, Fornell complains to me, has been doing something similar with their building. Making sure lights go off when they leave rooms, keeping heating bills to a minimum, turning alarms off for a couple minutes every two or three hours, and other things to keep their funding in places where it won't be put to waste."

"Alright, so now I've been left behind. What are we supposed to do if the guy was working for the CIA, we can't tell the CIA about Alex, and Alex won't tell us anything about anything?"

"The same thing we always do. Find the killer and put him behind bars."

Tony crossed his arms. "We just walked around for four hours to figure out that we are still at square one, didn't we?"

"Don't think of it as overtime, Dinozzo."

"I'll do my best, boss, but I don't think that's going to help."

* * *

><p>Wolf refused to come anywhere near their safe house until he was sure that no one could possibly be following them. Even Snake had to admit he was being ridiculous, up to a certain degree. "No one even knows we're here."<p>

"Obviously someone does, or we wouldn't be in this mess."

And that was how things stayed until Alex groggily sat up in the backseat. "Hey, where are we now?" Ziva turned around to see the teenager rub at his eyes and pick at the stained gauze wrapped around his head. "And why do you guys keep drugging me? That's just unfair, and a little clichéd."

Snake tipped his head back from the passenger seat. "I hope I'm not hearing any complaints from the _minor_ who just got admitted as my patient after recklessly running into the road _without looking both ways_."

"Besides," Falcon swung around, "do y'know how long it took me to line up that beautiful shot? Finding the perfect tree _hours_ in advance so you wouldn't hear me move?" If the sniper had been a teenage girl, he would have been flipping his hair with a pout. "Not that I minded. It was totally worth it."

Alex grumbled, but didn't protest further. "As long as you're enjoying this. But where are we, exactly?"

"Security run," Wolf growled.

The teenager raised an eyebrow and leaned over to Eagle. "How _long_ have we been on this security run?" he asked in a low voice.

"At least half an hour," he muttered back. "And I don't think he intends on stopping for breakfast anytime soon. Oh, and Ben told me to tell you that he needs you in on one of the meetings. Something to do with Iodine and Hobbit?"

He shot up in his seat, holding his head when the wave of dizziness caught up with him. "What time was that?"

"Five, maybe six minutes ago. He was really insistent, but I told him you were going to be out of the game for a little while longer. Come to think of it, Ben bought that all too well. It's almost like…like he _knew_ what we were doing."

"Oh he probably does." His face was lit by the blue glow emanating from his phone as it hummed the start-up chord. "Between Matthews, Lawrence and West, I doubt there are many things that can stay secret from SIS for very long." The quick tap of short fingernails on the miniature keyboard filled the silence for a couple seconds. "Wolf, I doubt anyone's good enough to still be on our trail, much less have the sheer amount of necessary patience."

"No backseat driving. You can't complain if you're dead. _Again_."

Alex wasn't the only one who flinched at that remark, Ziva noted with surprise. The last six months must have been challenging enough to leave lasting impressions on the group as a whole.

"Again?" she prodded, despite knowing she would get little out of them.

"Technicalities," he said offhandedly, so casually that it was the most blatant lie she had ever heard pass his lips. "I mean, if I were a vampire, I'd probably sparkle or turn to pixie dust in the sunlight. We're months past Halloween, too."

The joke passed over her head, as did many of the puns her colleagues made, but she got the gist of it. "There are many ways that people can…sort-of-but-not-actually die, as Tony would put it."

"Please, Ziva, you overestimate me. I may be a spy, but I'm also seventeen. That's practically a job of its own." The key-clicking recommenced, as he asked, "So, how's Eli doing these days? I hear he has a run of good fortune coming his way."

She spun around as fast as he had sat up only a moment ago, nearly giving herself whiplash. "How did you—?" Her phone buzzed, interrupting before she could even get started. The NCIS agent narrowed her eyes, wordlessly getting the message across that this wasn't over, and answered her phone. "This is Ziva David speaking."

Eagle draped an arm across the back of seat and hung his head over the headrest to stare upside down at the distracted teenager. "You know, she could probably kick your ass. I wouldn't make too much trouble with her."

He didn't look up from the cell. "She could and she has. We work the same field. Ziva's just mad that I know more than she does for once."

Ziva, who could clearly hear their exchange, mouthed the word 'payback' to a smirking Alex, before returning to her call. "Got it, Gibbs. You want to talk to Alex? … All right. Keep me updated. … I will." She snapped the phone shut, and returned her glare to full blast. "They confirmed your story, to a certain point. The trail led back to Langley and there was a nice hole in their security."

"Cutbacks can only go so far. Then they just become a nuisance. I'll be really nice and make sure to inform Rochester of this. Our gadgetmaker, Smithers, can probably give them a hint or two in the money saving department."

"Good. Now how do you know what my father is up to? You never elaborated on your meetings with him."

"Only because there wasn't much to tell. If it makes you feel better, we have not had contact beyond the odd email updates for the past year."

"Then how did you see the two of us together? We do not exactly have…family 'get-togethers'."

Eyes still glued to his phone, the teenager shrugged. "It goes back much further than that. My uncle and father were spies, you know, and on one of my uncle's 'business trips' to the Middle East, he took me along to expose me to the language and culture. Never did catch on to more than a couple phrases**, but at least I can fake the accent well enough.

"I didn't know then, but one of the men we ate evening meals with was your father, Eli David. He went along with the 'banking' story that my uncle Ian used as his cover, and until we met again a year and some months ago, I was none the wiser. Except…you had a sister and a brother with you then. Eli hasn't brought their names up since, but the rumors I hear about Ari—"

"Half-brother," she corrected. "Ari Haswari was my half-brother. I shot him before he could shoot Gibbs. Tali was killed in a suicide bombing, probably a year or two after you and your uncle visited***. What did you say your uncle's name was again?"

"Ian Rider. He was killed by Gregorovich three years ago."

"I don't recall anyone named Rider."

"Then he was doing his job right."

They engaged in another stare-off until Alex's phone pinged as a new text came in. "Who are you talking to, exactly?"

"Iodine. She needed some intel. With the little I got from my CIA visit, she and Hobbit are carrying out some regular, boring-old field work. And I thought for the longest time that I was the only one the higher-ups didn't officially register guns to. Apparently, the boring stuff doesn't get you automatically elected to carry concealed weapons like the active stuff does." Eagle and Falcon broke into laughter almost simultaneously, startling Alex into looking up with dilated pupils from staring into the bright screen. "What?"

"The look on Ziva's face," Eagle gasped, "is absolutely priceless!"

The spy and former-Mossad shared an exasperated look. Dealing with coworkers was the same in every country and agency, as had just been proven.

Falcon helpfully added, "It's like watching a 'total bullshit' meter practically explode out the top. You've got yourself a human lie detector there, Alex."

"I'm glad that you two can amuse yourselves, but it's really no more interesting than that. Iodine needs a couple names, and I happen to have those."

"How long does it take to send names?"

"Who said that was all I was doing?"

Falcon opened his mouth, thought for a second, and closed it again with a shake of his head. "I give up on you. It gives me good target practice, anyway."

"I'm glad we have an understanding," he wryly shot back.

Ziva couldn't shake the feeling that Alex knew exactly what he was doing when he knocked conversations off on irrelevant tangents, but he did it so often and so carelessly that it was hard to catch on to if you were one of the ones engaged in the talking. "After you uncle's visit, how did you become…_reacquainted_ with my father? He isn't the kind of person that most people would seek out."

"I'm not most people." She thought momentarily that he would evade the question with another well-placed remark. To her surprise, and K-Unit's, he said, "Funny story, because he was the one who contacted me."

Whether or not he intended to elaborate was cut short by the vehicle's sudden stop by the side of the street.

"We're here?" Eagle wasn't the only one surprised, but he was the first to voice it.

"No, I thought we should stop for ice cream." The soldier rolled his eyes as he opened his door. "Yes, we're here. Welcome to the safe house."

To say that the house looked nothing like a place to hide a spy on the run from some nameless enemy would have been an understatement. Now Ziva probably would have wondered what being beneath divisions of US land had anything to do with the current situation, but the very thought crossed her mind regardless. The quaint little house, with its old fashioned shutters, hand painted fence, neatly kept flower and vegetable garden, and the swing set meant only to be used by young children, was set well to the back of the large neighborhood. The back fence swung out to the woods on the outskirts of the property line. There was even a set of brilliant pink mittens that a girl might have left in the rush of being called in for dinner the previous night sitting carelessly on the bottom step leading up to the door. Had the two men sitting casually on the veranda with their blue and white striped mugs of coffee in hand not had machine guns lying across their knees and bulletproof vests just bulging through their parkas, she would never have guessed it for what it was.

"_This_ is your safe house?"

Alex glanced up for a moment, looking from her to the house and back down to his phone, before nodding. "Yep. One of the nicer ones."

"It's not exclusively _his_ safe house. We're borrowing," Wolf corrected, leaning back into the van to put the keys back in the ignition.

"Borrowing? From whom?"

He flickered his headlights twice before turning the van off again.

Eagle pulled a thin piece of metal from a duffle bag on the floor as he stepped out on to the grass, flipping it around when it became entangled in the handles to reveal an entirely different license plate. He handed off a handful of documents paperclipped together to Snake, who stuffed them into the dash. Falcon grabbed his long gun bag from where he had dumped it in the backseat with Alex, and proceeded to follow the teenager through the ivy-infused archway, Ziva and Snake not far behind. Wolf and Eagle completed the minor embellishments to the vehicle and locked up the van before coming through the gate themselves.

A rather short man, though not nearly as small as the teenager, still dressed in his pajama shorts and a thin grey top pulled open the door after Alex pressed the doorbell more times than strictly necessary. He had frazzled white hair and a matching mustache that gave the impression he had been recently struck by lightning. Lightning blue eyes stared piercingly out from beneath bushy brows. "Hn, Rider, I don't suppose that's you making this racket at one in the morning."

"I told you I would probably stop by."

"An advance warning might've been put to good use." Nevertheless, he stepped to the side, holding the door open in a clear 'come on in' gesture. "I see you've brought friends this time."

"There were extenuating circumstances. We may be staying longer than I originally requested."

The man was unperturbed by the surprise visit, knocking blankets and pillows down from what seemed to be an endless emergency stash in the downstairs hallway closet. "Problems?"

"Nope. Just a couple delays."

"Good. Care to make the introductions?" he asked, dumping the pile by the nearby couch and leaning against one of its arms.

"Obviously, you've talked coordinations with K-Unit before. There's Wolf, Snake, Eagle and Falcon." The man shook hands with each one of them as their name was said. "And you might have heard of Ziva David, through Fornell. She's one of Gibbs' team, and he had the courtesy to loan her out for the time being."

"Of course, Tobias has had only the best to say about you," he added, clasping her hand firmly. She nodded, waiting to hear the other side of the intros.

"Ziva, this is Joe Byrne. He runs the part of the CIA that manages covert actions, and just recently promoted. The two armed guys up top are his nephew, Tyler, and son, Harrison. Speaking of armed, are they allowed to have any of that, or did you just let it slide?"

"This is a registered safe house for witness protection and used by the CIA for housing foreign guests. I doubt they'll have too much to complain about if the kids like to make sure the old place has some upgraded defenses." Eagle muttered something about testing them out before Wolf kicked his shin loud enough to hear the thump. "Which reminds me, how did it go?"

"Johnson's dead."

The deep-set frown lines embedded in Byrne's forehead grew deeper. "That's disconcerting. He was quite helpful, considering how short a time he was employed. How did this happen?"

"He came back early. Took a security officer by surprise."

"And? Were you caught on surveillance together, or…?"

"No. The officer won't be talking, either. It's been covered up." The tired reluctance in those two short sentences was immediately evident, though Alex would have marked it up to late hours and getting clipped by Abby's truck. The unfortunate officer would be found a week or two later, once the spy had safely fled back to England and thoroughly erased his presence, floating down the river or maybe badly burnt from a fire. There would be no connection to the CIA or MI6 anywhere on his person, and no one would ever hazard such an idea outloud without wanting to disappear themselves.

Byrne sighed. "Oh well. What's done is done. Get some rest and you can fill me in on the details tomorrow."

* * *

><p>[<em>…and the nuclear systems are intact?<em>]

[Yes. Fully intact, but the nukes themselves are not. Rudimentary if you ask me.]

[_It's the systems that I want to have analyzed._]

[Iodine has the first test results run off. Would you like them sent to you?]

[_Don't bother. Complete gibberish without a translator. What do they say?_]

[Radiation levels are dangerously high. Should Hobbit be withdrawn?]

[_No. Finish the full spectrum tests and get Walker and Matthews up. The minute those systems are up, I want them working full speed on decryption. Tell me what else they're new defense package has in store._]

[We may have a problem. Hobbit is the only one who is fluent in Korean, and he's in the field.]

[_So's Knight. We may as well put our liaisons to work._]

* * *

><p>"Boss, he says he can't remember anything about when he was attacked, but the records show he was here. I think Alex missed a witness."<p>

"He didn't see anything if he can't remember what he saw, Dinozzo."

There was a lot of explaining that needed to be done.

* * *

><p>AN: Yeah, this is shorter than the rest of the chapters, but I really wanted to post something for this story before going back on hiatus. I have this Rube-Goldberg design to make, record, and fill out paperwork for within the next three weeks. Sorry. I love working on these stories, but my physics final comes before everything else. Oh yes, and I haven't been magically cured yet. Still sick. Still not sure why.

So the next update…best estimates say winter break, for both this one and _Requiem_.

*Alright, who got this one? Anyone? How about a hint… This movie was originally a Steven King novel. Not enough? Okay, the movie is called _The Shawshank Redemption_. Dufresne was the main character, played by Tim Robbins. Get it? If you do, you're awesome and deserve a bonbon. O

**For those of you wondering if I've forgotten _Safehouse_, where he spoke fluent Arabic in the last chapter…I haven't. After all, a magician never reveals all of his secrets, and spies are a lot like magicians, are they not?

***I have done quite a bit of math, and apparently, there is only a fourteen year gap between Ziva and Alex (assuming Alex was born 1994, as I'm using the present as my reference, and I stated that he's seventeen). All my dates and information come via ncis .wikia .com as I couldn't possibly have watched every single NCIS episode. If something's wrong, correct me, s'il vous plait.


	5. Chapter 4

Part four of _Not All That Is Over Is Past_. Negative labs, and yet they still have no idea what's wrong. Zut, mais c'est la vie.

Désolée in advance about the shortness. I wasn't sure if I would get the chance to expand on it.

* * *

><p>[Special Agent Gibbs left another message. He is quite insistent on the matter of speaking to you. You have nothing for me to pass on to him?]<p>

[_I would not presume to think that leading him down another trail would keep him off my scent for long. As far as he is concerned, I am not within reach._]

[You might be closer to the heart of the matter than you realize. There was an…incident in the field. D.C. It is possible they have found a witness to some of our work, one who could put names to faces.]

[_We only need enough time to withdraw from this mess. Is there any further information on Hobbit's research?_]

[Knight is translating and compiling as we speak.]

[_Good. This mission needs to be wrapped up, and the sooner the better. Is there anything else I need to be aware of in D.C.?_]

[Nothing that I know of.]

[_Keep me informed._]

* * *

><p>Gibbs flipped the phone shut, tossing it carelessly back into his supply bag.<p>

"Anything?"

He shook his head at Dinozzo's question. "Same answer. He's not in, he'll be back in another week, he's still out in the field. I'm beginning to find it hard to believe that one man can be so difficult to locate."

They shifted their attention to the CIA briefing room, or one of them at any rate. The single unmarked door was cracked open to let in fresh air, and the gridded window was transparent just enough to watch the single man inside. Their possible witness was sitting quite comfortably in a lounge chair, their seal stitched into the back as it was in all of their furniture. The CIA likely feared some megalomaniac would sneak in and do away with their beloved upholstery in the night, devoting an entire department to keep track of each individual piece.

"Besides the tapes, which look like they were halfway erased before we got to them, we have a nice black eye and some small cuts to add to our list of evidence. He doesn't remember anything except nuking his dinner in the South Lounge, getting on duty five minutes early, and winding up in a scuffle that left him unconscious.

"To add to that, you can't see squat on what was left of the tapes, and there's no hard evidence anywhere to prove that Alex and/or the dead lieutenant were ever here. Why are we looking so deeply into this, again?"

"Just because we think we know what happened, doesn't necessarily mean we do."

"And because I can't wait for more overtime," he murmured unhappily. "Who needs sleep? Or breakfast? In fact, why do I even leave work anymore?"

"I don't know, Dinozzo. Why do you?"

Their hastily-labeled 'witness' got their attention by pounding on the table in front of him and waving a folder over his head. "Hey, I think I've gotten somethin'!"

Tony grumbled under his breath, "It's about time."

Gibbs peeled the door back from its hinges—not a creak emanating from the newly oiled metal—and gestured for him to start speaking as he took another seal-emblazoned chair across the room from the guard. "What have you remembered?"

"This guy," he confidently stated, standing slightly to pass over the manila file. A 4x6, no more than a year old and clear enough to count each individual hair on his head, was clipped to the front for easy reference. Dozens more spaced over longer spans of time littered the inside, but the picture front and center was the one used on his ID card. "This guy was the one I was supposed to be switchin' with. Normally one of the morning folks, I do believe, and that was why I couldn't bring his name to mind."

"Boss, Jeremy Silvestre never signed out," Tony confided in a tone low enough to keep it between themselves. "We assumed he was still on duty and dumped his folder with the ones to look over."

"Has anyone seen him since?"

"I don't know, but I can ask around," he quickly amended. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that Lieutenant Johnson doesn't look like the only casualty in our case anymore."

* * *

><p>Ziva shifted her weight again, throwing one leg over the other in another futile attempt to relax into the stiff couch. "So, I don't suppose you would be down for making conversation."<p>

"The word used in that particular metaphor would be 'up', rather than 'down'." He clicked out more letters rather than acknowledge her attempt to break up the silence filling the room. Once it had become evident that she wasn't going to nod off within the foreseeable future, Alex stopped typing, dangling it by the keyboard from his fingers. It wasn't turned off, but no matter how carelessly it appeared to be hanging, the text never once came into her view. "You weren't satisfied with my answer."

Their host had long since returned to bed, as soon as he had completed the tour of his modest 'home away from home'. K-Unit was enjoying the deepest sleep they had had in weeks, minus Falcon, who was left to keep an eye on the premises. He went under the guise of watching the premises, but it was clear that his concern was not in the new arrivals but rather the early departures. Tyler and Harrison, manning the miniature citadel's night watch, could be heard joking and laughing at all hours even past dawn. The unlimited drinks plan must have been a major clause of compensation in their agreement, because they certainly weren't about to run out anytime soon. The two had kindly offered bottles to both the young-going-on-ancient spy and NCIS agent, but it was quickly shot down.

Even two hours after the sun finally got around to scaling the misty morning sky, Ziva and Alex still sat in the same positions in Byrne's sitting room.

"There wasn't ample time to finish."

Alex admitted, "I suppose you have me there," with a wry smile. "Really, though, you are overestimating my pursuits again."

"Your words are hardly compelling."

He laughed, but it was a mirthless laugh. "Your company is most charming. Being around silver-tongued bureaucrats all day long, everyone doing their utmost to get something from everyone else, rather skews my ability to have idle chats; and you are much more frank with your words than I am used to."

"Says the one with quite the silver tongue himself," she countered. "You have a well-developed tendency to take conversations far from their intended pursuits."

"Bad habits do have a way of sneaking up on you once they develop. I blame MI6, personally, but then I blame them for a lot of things." His efforts to bat conversations where he felt safe had been reduced to a near-comical mimicry.

She was determined to get her answers, even if it meant burning a hole through his skull and picking them out with her own fingers. "You said that my father hired you?"

"'Contacted' or 'got in touch with' would be more politically accurate, seeing as there was no money exchanged."

Ziva pushed harder. "So? What was it about?"

"A simple information trade," he dismissively shrugged, glancing down to check his screen as a new message quietly announced its arrival. "It was a while back, a month short of a year if I have my dates right, that he asked about some local activities. We…well, _they_ had been in town for a week and he didn't like the way it was stirring up the usual circles. I just so happened to be the next village over, getting provisions and just generally looking for something to do while stuff was finalized at the London HQ.

"Eli David was interested in the impacts we were leaving around us, I was interested in cleaning those up. A small arrangement, really, and I withdrew our groups to a place further from the city. In return, we finished the assignment quickly with local assistance. Both sides benefited and no one died—that I know of, anyway. How much better a day could we get?"

"It does not sound like my father to come out of a bargain with no more than he started out."

"That was very much how it went," he said, dryly punctuating his feelings with a sleepy eye roll. "He is quite the bargainer, and had our work not gone hand in hand with his own, I believe the cost may have been too many zeroes for my accounts to handle. But this isn't the sort of thing to discuss, being so close to my lavish retirement."

"Your what?" She knew he was just pulling strings to keep her from probing deeper, but found the siren song irresistible.

"MI6 doesn't want a brainless adult spy on their hands when they could have one with a couple degrees for the small price of losing me for a handful of years. Whatever school I want, anything I could possibly need, Rochester's willing to put me through as many years of any profession I choose. Well, so long as I bark when they ask for something in return."

"Why won't you just leave the business altogether? Once you're an adult, you get anything your uncle and parents left to you. They can't hold living expenses and such over your head like they've done up till now."

The teenager pulled his knees up into the recliner, drawing them further under the dark blue and red patchwork blanket. The black tea on the side table had been long forgotten, and as he sipped from it now, it was bitter and devoid of heat. "You've been doing your research, I see. I never brought that up when I spoke to you or your team on my last visit."

"It can't really be called 'research'. You would be surprised how many tongues your name loosens up among the CIA. It might as well be a master key card. Gibbs had McGee take a look at your bank records, not the ones through the 'Royal and General' of course, and we discovered that you have access to less than £1500* until you inherit your uncle's account next year. The only reason you weren't in an orphanage or foster care was because your housekeeper was taking responsibility for you on a Visa that was long overdue. Someone had to have been making sure that none of these little things made it impossible for you to keep up your part-time job at MI6. It all adds up once the pieces come together."

"Interesting." She raised an eyebrow as he fiddled with the cloth, his voice almost a soft purr. "For that, I'll give a little. You can tell Gibbs that I was working in Johnson's position for the last two months. His colleagues didn't know, because he was a field agent that didn't come into the office as often as he should have. I wore enough of a disguise that no one bothered to ask any questions. Now, could you hand me that duck tape over there?"

Ziva grabbed the roll from a spot on the floor and chucked in his direction. Beneath the bandage on his head was a jagged black scab smeared with crimson on the edges from the blood coagulated on the wrap. Alex ripped free a strip of silver tape, carefully feeling the swollen skin and pulling back the occasional loose strand of hair before flattening the tape across his forehead. "Snake will make a fuss about this later," he commented dryly, securing the stained bandage back over the top, "but he can't deny that duck tape fixes pretty much everything."

"What was Johnson working on, before you took his identity?"

"Working on? Knowing Johnson, probably another game of solitaire. The man had a steadfast belief that if one did not wish to do office work, then he could manage it if he tried hard enough. Smart guy, but a lazy bum nonetheless. To answer your question, I don't know."

"Then why him and not someone else?" she asked. "Did you know him?"

"No, he just happened to have all the right credentials for a 'double-agent,' I guess you'd label him. No close friends or family, something of a boring day-to-day job, average paycheck; Johnson just wanted something to _do_. He hadn't had an interesting assignment for months, and Rochester made him an offer that would give him plenty of dangerous, important jobs all the time. It was easy to accept, and he didn't even want the extra pay except when the jobs were extraordinarily risky to his career. Names were never leaked. That was another condition that he gave."

"You know an awful lot for someone who claims to be retiring."

"Do I? It's not as if anyone tells me these things, in the first place, and Rochester and I don't see eye to eye on most things. I figure that for these bargains with MI6 to hold up, you have to have your own bargaining chips. So I might spy a little on my own agency to keep things balanced."

"That's very…"

"Paranoid?" he offered.

"Something like that. How would you work in an environment where you can't trust each other to keep secrets?"

"Oh it isn't like that for everyone. I just do that because I have to maintain an illusion of power. If you look weak, you can get scammed and overused. I'm younger than the rest of them, so I have to puff out my chest and look untouchable. It's a personal thing. That I know of, the office majority gets along just fine."

Ziva was dubious, but she stood to pick her phone up from the coffee table. Taking it into the kitchen, and watching Alex resume his furious texting, she flicked the top up with a short fingernail and answered, "This is Ziva speaking."

"_Has he mentioned anything about the man who shot Lieutenant Johnson?"_Gibbs and Dinozzo must have been at Langley, by the way her boss was speaking. A certain edge crept into his tone when he knew someone was keeping information from him; especially if that someone was a teenager.

"Not yet, but he did say that he's been undercover in the CIA for two years. Johnson, according to him, probably wasn't working on anything important. Everyone thought he was Johnson, no known exceptions."

"_Does he have a gun?"_

"A gun? I don't think so, but there's no visible holster. Should I ask?"

"_Please do."_

She put a hand over the speaker as she opened the door and shouted into the adjoining room. "Alex! Are you armed?"

Alex had tilted the recliner back to get in a better position for sleeping, but he fished around beneath the blankets. "What kind of armed? Like with a gun?"

"A gun, yes."

"Oh, okay. Umm, I have a…" he held one up to the light, "a custom make one from Smithers, and a Sig…can't read the ID numbers on it…and a Colt, but I haven't used that one in a couple months. Can you be more specific?"

Ziva spoke back into the phone. "He has three. Could you be more specific?"

"Not right now. Ask him if he's used any of them within the past twenty-four hours within Langley."

"Have you shot any of them within the past twenty-four hours at Langley?" she reiterated at the curled-up figure.

He rubbed at his eyes, letting the back of the chair straighten up so he could turn the nearby lamp back on. "Give me a second to think." Each gun—including the supposedly unused Colt on his ankle holster—had its chambers inspected before he found two missing bullets: one from the Sig Sauer and the other from the Raven [read/ Smither's custom]. "Yeah, one shot. Why?"

"He says one. Did you recover a shell casing at the crime scene?"

"_If we could find the crime scene, that would be a step in the right direction. Ask Alex if he remembers shooting one of the security guards. We have a witness with a concussion that was probably caused by a graze."_

"Alex, did you shoot one of the security guards?"

The Raven was slid back into a twin sheath with his Sig against the small of his back, where the borrowed NCIS sweatshirt did a great job of disguising the unmistakable outlines that would have shown through his thin t-shirt. "Yes, but only to warn him off," he said in rapid answer. "And tell Gibbs that my jacket should be up there somewhere. It was specialty made through MI6's gadget maker, and he probably wants it back to reuse."

"He says he let off a warning shot, one that might have been close enough."

"_There was another guard, Jeremy Silvestre, who never returned back to duty. He's been officially tagged as missing. Does Alex know what happened to him, or where he is?"_

"Do you know a Jeremy Silvestre?"

The teenager thought for a minute. "Not by name, no. What did he look like?"

"Description, Gibbs?"

"_Early thirties, six-foot five, dark eyes, short dark hair, short goatee, the regular security uniform and our witness says he had a high-end watch on his left wrist, a Rolex by his guess."_

She repeated the information, and Alex shook his head. "I didn't see him last night, but I might have seen him earlier in the week. Isn't he normally one of the early morning workers? When did he disappear?"

"He doesn't recall running into him last night, but he thinks that they might have met earlier while he was on the morning shift."

There was a deep sigh on the other end. _"All right. We'll leave it here for now. I'll send Dinozzo home, and we can regroup after lunch. Get some rest, but keep an eye on Alex."_

"Got it, boss." Ziva plugged the phone back into the charger as she reclaimed her position on the couch. "Night, Alex."

"More like 'morning'," he mumbled, but fell asleep only two minutes later.

* * *

><p>AN: Another short chapter. **TT**_**TT** I'm so sorry. I love you guys a ton, but I'm soooo busy. Not sick anymore (well, depending on one's definition of 'sick'), but busy. I actually had most of this done a week ago… Sort of sidetracked back to my Rube-Goldberg stuff, plus this collaboration work I should be doing, and then the stuff for _NightmareWorld_ and my _Takanami_ account. *facekeyboards* I should never have done something so stupid as do two stories at a time.

But, with only three days of school this week, I should be getting a lot of things done. Does this mean faster updates? Hell no. I might not even have internet capabilities by the weekend, and then my mother is running off with my laptop _again_ next week. That's familial love, I tell you.

Yet another side note: Does anyone here love _Lord of the Rings_? I'm talking books here, not movies. If you're thinking 'Hell yeah!' then _NightmareWorld _and myself are proud to say that we are going to be unveiling our modern day rendering of LotR hopefully within the next year. We are undertaking the massive assignment of re-writing the entire trilogy—and this includes every battle, every character, every seemingly-insignificant event—into the era of 21st century Earth. Seem insane? Oh, it will be. But it shall be the most epic re-rendering you have ever laid your mortal eyes upon. *cue evil laughter*

*This is a rough estimate, based on monthly prices of living in the US. Any British citizens are free to take their best stabs at this and shoot my estimate down in a PM. In fact, I can't wait to hear from you.

[Thanks to _ReillyScarecrowRocks_ and the ever lovely _speechbubble_ for pointing out the obvious euro vs. pound mistake, and making estimates on the prices.]


	6. UPDATE TIME!

THIS IS NOT A CHAPTER, BUT AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE TO READERS!

Sorry about that, because I know how annoying this is, but this is just a message to all my wonderful followers that this story will be continued. It is undergoing an operation to figure out where I lost the plot. So please, once the next chapter is up, scan back over previous chapters to check out the changes I've added.

Thank you all for keeping up with me, and I hope to see you soon! I'll keep periodic updates on my health and current story statuses, so please only send me a PM demanding faster updates after reading that.

Ja ne!  
>Tsuki<p>

* * *

><p>(You can leave reviews, but this chapter will be deleted when the next one comes in.) (And yes, you AR people, I am getting back to you guys later. Hush.)<p> 


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